Spokane7
42°
The Idaho Transportation Department has joined ConocoPhillips in appealing to the Idaho Supreme Court a local judge’s decision to revoke its permits for four huge truckloads of oil refinery equipment to travel winding U.S. Highway 12 from Lewiston to Montana, saying the decision could “end up restricting commerce and limiting business opportunities.” Meanwhile, the high court granted a motion from ConocoPhillips to expedite the court appeal, rather than take the usual time - averaging 450 days - to hear a civil appeal. However, it set oral arguments for Oct. 1. That’s expedited for a Supreme Court appeal, but it’s not quick enough to allow Conoco to move the four giant shipments before paving starts on the second lane of the Arrow Bridge on Highway 12, as it had hoped.
Because the loads are so wide they’ll take up both lanes of the bridge, that means the earliest they could move - if everything went Conoco’s way - would be late October, when the paving job is scheduled to be completed. The first lane already has been paved; Conoco has been paying the ITD’s contractor to hold off on the second lane while the permits were tied up in court. You can read my full story here at spokesman.com; read ITD’s filings here and see the Supreme Court’s order here.
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SmittyK on August 30 at 3:22 p.m.
Welcome to Idaho - Where we let Business take over common sense.
powderfarmer on August 30 at 8:30 p.m.
the way this has lined up, it definitely can be inferred that the fix was in. that is what is the most troubling.
HonestGeorge on August 30 at 9:45 p.m.
powderfarmer nailed it - there are just too many common sense factors being overlooked by ITD. I walk the levee across from those four loads every day - and believe me, they are HUGE. Two semi’s with full-height trailers parked nearby are dwarfed by their size. A normal semi trailer is usually about 13 to 13.6 feet high - these coke drums are 27 feet high. Normal width of a semi is 8 feet wide - these babies are 29 feet wide. The length of a semi trailer varies around 65-90 feet long. The coke barrels carrier trailers are 224 feet long.
IMO a good portion of the ‘distributed’ load of these babies will be on the lanes’ edge on both sides of the roadway - an area that breaks up first during any disturbance of the roadway because their is no ‘curb’ type damming action holding the roadway in place.
This idea is ludicrous.